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Marijuana's harms to teens a topic at Lincoln High School forum

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Marijuana's impact on teens was the topic of a forum Wednesday at Lincoln High School in Portland. Teens were warned about the risks marijuana poses to their safety, health and future employment.
(Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian)

Marijuana use can harm teen memory and intellect. Using it at school or giving it to another student can get you hauled into an administrator’s office. It can get you nabbed for driving under the influence and trip up your job prospects.

Those were among the possible consequences underscored at a forum Wednesday evening by Lincoln High School officials who are alarmed by a 2013 survey showing 38 percent of 11th graders at the Portland school consumed cannabis in the previous month.

The talk drew about 170 parents and Lincoln students. (Some kids came not for the frank talk on drugs, but the free pizza and extra academic credit the school offered in exchange for attendance.)

Mike Roach, a former Lincoln parent who helped organize the discussion, said Oregonians need to hear about the health consequences of teen marijuana as the debate over legalizing recreational marijuana heats up. A panel of Oregon lawmakers is scheduled to hold a public hearing Feb. 11 on a bill that would refer a marijuana legalization proposal to voters.

“The teen brain is the real Achilles’ heel of legalization,” said Roach.

Roach said young people saw the successful legalization campaigns in Washington and Colorado as an endorsement of the drug.

“The perception is if it’s going to be legalized, then it must be almost harmless,” he said. “Why would they legalize a dangerous substance?

Statewide, teen marijuana use has risen since 2002-2003, according to data collected by the Oregon Health Authority. The data shows that in 2002, 9.3 percent of 12 to 17-year-olds reported using cannabis in the previous month, compared with 10.3 percent in 2010-2011.

Nationally, the rates of teen marijuana has risen in recent years after a decade of decline, according to the latest Monitoring the Future survey. The drug’s perceived risk among teens continued a sharp drop that began in 2005, researchers found.

Wednesday’s panel at Lincoln included a Portland police officer who gave tips to parents on spotting signs that their kids might be using marijuana; a researcher from Oregon Health & Science University who discussed research findings on marijuana and the teen brain; a Portland General Electric representative who talked about how employers often require employee drug testing; and a parent who spoke about how pot killed her son’s motivation. Parents were given free marijuana test kits to use if they suspect their child has used the drug.

Peyton Chapman, Lincoln’s principal, also spoke. She rattled off school sanctions for students caught possessing or dealing marijuana. And she underscored the importance of parents’ beliefs about marijuana in their kids’ perceptions of the drug.

She said she rarely sees cigarette smoking near school, which she attributes in large part to parents’ almost universal rejection of tobacco. But it’s a different story when it comes to cannabis. Only 78 percent of Lincoln students “know their parents would disapprove of them smoking marijuana,” she said.

“The more casual this gets, the more accepted it gets,” she said. “We are going to have to step up and supervise more. It’s really going to be hard to monitor, especially when you have vaporizers and candies and things that are hard to monitor.”

Jim Hanson, Lincoln’s school psychologist, said the school’s marijuana use is higher than that of other Portland high schools.

“This is one of the few schools that has the courage to put these statistics out there and say this is where we are at,” he said, adding that reducing marijuana use among students is included in the school’s improvement plan.

But the message that marijuana is a health hazard is a tough sell for some teens, who said they view it as a safer choice than alcohol.

Sophomore Alex Maciocco, 15, asked the panel if marijuana, which is legal for medical use in Oregon, has any positive qualities. The answer: not at his age.

But Maciocco later told The Oregonian that it’s “really hard” to overdose on marijuana and he sees it as a smarter choice than drinking. His friends, who listened quietly throughout the panel, largely agreed.

“I get that it’s bad and everything,” Maciocco said. “But people need the whole truth instead of one side of it.

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